Stakeholder engagement for socially sustainable infrastructure development: strategic and/or responsible?

Purpose Stakeholder engagement may take a means-driven ‘strategic’ approach or an ethics-based ‘responsible’ approach. But do these two approaches overlap, and does stakeholder engagement necessarily become responsible if used in the normative context of socially sustainable infrastructure development (SSID)? Does such an engagement–responsibility nexus really exist? This study aims to answer these questions by studying how project-based organizations engage with three project stakeholders – local communities, end-users and workers – to facilitate SSID. Design/methodology/approach This research adopts a qualitative approach and draws upon the theoretical constructs of stakeholder agency, engagement and attributes. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews. It was rooted in the geographical context of infrastructure development in one of the fastest-growing emerging economies of the global south, India. A systematic analysis of interview responses was performed to assess if stakeholder engagement for SSID was necessarily a responsible act. Findings The analysis found that the engagement with project stakeholders was largely driven by regulatory compulsions, utilitarian motives or coercive risks. The engagement exhibited inter- as well as intra-stakeholder prioritization and did little to address stakeholders’ well-being. In sum, the stakeholder engagement meant to facilitate SSID was not necessarily responsible, and hence, the engagement–responsibility nexus was non-existent. Different relationships between levels of engagement and responsibility were revealed; it was ‘paternalism’ (low engagement–high responsibility) for end-users, ‘neoclassic’ (low engagement–low responsibility) for workers and ‘strategic’ (high engagement–low responsibility) for the local community. But in no case was the relationship ‘responsible’ (high engagement–high responsibility). Originality/value This research deepens the understanding of stakeholder engagement in normative, multi-stakeholder settings. It extends the argued inapplicability of engagement–responsibility nexus to the normative context of SSID. The findings suggest that an alignment of strategy and responsibility would require reconfiguration of stakeholder engagement through means-end decoupling. This can transform the engagement process into an instrument of sustainable development.